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The Bolt Manifesto

Bolt is a CMS that is steadily growing in popularity, and with that popularity
comes an influx of new users and developers. This document is our Manifesto: It
outlines the goals of Bolt, our motto and our values. This document also
describes how we intend to make sure we will adhere to these self-imposed
rules.

Our slogan is "Simple, sophisticated and straightforward1".
This embodies everything we strive to do with Bolt: It is as simple as
possible, but not simpler. It uses sophisticated technology to achieve this,
and use of the system should be straightforward and evident.

Bolt aims at three groups of users: Editors (content writers and
editorial staff), Frontend developers (HTML/CSS specialists and implementers)
and Backend developers (coders, devops and sysops). All three are equally
important.

We recognize that Bolt is best suited for medium-sized websites. By keeping
this in mind, we will make sure that we do not spread ourselves too thin.

We will never add new features, if they detract from any of the points
mentioned above. If a proposed feature makes the system harder to use, it
will not be accepted. If a proposed feature is for the benefit of one of our
groups of users, but disadvantageous to another, it will not be accepted.

We will prevent feature creep: Functionality not essential to Bolt, should be
implemented as separate extensions.

Bolt is Open Source software and it will always be Open Source software.
We will never intentionally 'cripple' the system, in order to sell
extensions.

Our code should be clean, well-organised and legible. For more information,
read about our coding standards.

We welcome all types of contributions by our users: be it code, documentation
or helping out with support for the community.

We (the developers and users of Bolt) will always promote and maintain a
welcoming and inclusive community. This means that harassment or
prejudice of any kind, including but not limited to; sexism, homophobia, and
discrimination on religious or political beliefs, will not be tolerated
in any form.

1: Sometimes people comment on this saying "But, isn’t Simple and Sophisticated
a contradiction?" No, it is not. Simple is not to be confused with
'Simplistic'. Or, you could compare it to a car engine: What it does might
seem simple, but a modern car engine is a very distinguished and complex piece
of machinery, no matter how easy it is to use.